The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus that eliminates static electricity from a photoconductor surface by light irradiation.
Image forming apparatuses based on Xerography are thus far known, which are configured to evenly charge a photoconductor with a charging device, form a latent image with an exposure device, visualize the latent image with toner using a developing device, transfer the toner image to a sheet with a transfer device, and fix the toner on the sheet with a fixing device. In such image forming apparatuses, a ghost may appear in the image owing to disturbance of potential on the photoconductor surface taking place before the charging process, originating from a residual charge of the previous image forming operation. Accordingly, it is a normal practice to eliminate static electricity from the photoconductor surface, before the charging process of the next image forming operation.
Many of such image forming apparatuses include a plurality of illuminating devices respectively opposed to a plurality of photoconductors used for different colors, and each configured to irradiate the photoconductor surface with static elimination light. Normally, a light source is provided for each of the illuminating devices in this type of image forming apparatuses, and hence the same number of light sources as the number of photoconductors are necessary. Therefore, a larger space is required to accommodate the plurality of light sources, which naturally leads to an increase in cost. As a solution thereto, a technique of eliminating static electricity from a plurality of photoconductors with a single light source has been disclosed.